Not everyone is good or bad, smart or dumb, or even evil pollywosits…. City Hall has restructured after losing Stephen Alexanders salary due to retirement.
The city issued the press release below. It gives CFO Maureen Alexander a stronger grip of how things runs as Norm Levac gets ready for his retirement. Mark Boileau might actually get to do more work now as it wasn’t apparent that he was doing much at Economic Development and Kevin Lajoie can’t hang out with Bob Peters all the time any more.
The Seaway News is reporting $100K in yearly savings. I guess it helps to have a councilor on staff as Mr. Levac has not responded to our calls or emails as of press time.
I kinda like this idea. I’d like to know the hard numbers though. Has anyone on the list below been given a salary bump in the finagling?
On the surface, at least until some questions are answered I’d have to give the plan a hesitant thumbs up. Kudos to City Hall on this one.
CAO Norm Levac announces corporate reorganization plan
CAO Norm Levac is pleased to announce a series of changes to the City of Cornwall’s organizational structure that will lead to efficiencies for the municipal government.
The reorganization consists of three main components:
– Economic Development Manager Mark Boileau will be assuming the managerial role for the Department of Planning, Parks and Recreation, in addition to his existing duties. In this capacity, Mr. Boileau will be taking over the duties that were held by Mr. Stephen Alexander, who recently retired from the City of Cornwall.
– A Shared Services Department will be created from all services that are shared with the United Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry (namely Emergency Medical Services, the Glen Stor Dun Lodge and Social and Housing Services). The Shared Services Department will be overseen by Myles Cassidy.
– The Public Information Coordinator will be moved from Economic Development to the Office of the CAO and relocated within City Hall.
The changes will be put in place effective immediately, and are expected to be fully implemented by September 1.
The changes will result in having the following people reporting directly to the CAO: Maureen Adams – General Manager, Financial Services, John St. Marseille, General Manager, Infrastructure and Municipal Works, Mark Boileau – General Manager, Planning, Parks and Recreation, Myles Cassidy, General Manager, Shared Services, Helen Finn – City Clerk, Pierre Voisine – Chief, Fire Services, Geoff Clarke – Director, Human Resources and Kevin Lajoie – Public Information Coordinator.
“This will create a more efficient reporting structure between the Office of the CAO and the senior management team,” said Mr. Levac. “It will also allow us to focus more on strategic initiatives in addition to operational issues.”
The reorganization will also result in senior managers and the CAO having more time to dedicate to other community and corporate matters. Corporate communications will also be enhanced as part of the reorganization.
What do you think dear CFN viewers? You can post your comments below.
We’ll see if there are actual “savings.”
Jamie,
I see this as a very positive change and putting shared services together under Chief Cassidy is a much better fit than under Finance.
Take Care,
Diane
Jamie,
As far as the cost saving: All managers taking on additional responsibilities should go through the Non Union Job Evaluations process which will most likely use that $100,000 saving.
Take Care,
Diane Shay
And let’s not forget about the cost of rearranging offices, etc. That does not come free or cheap.
There are too many employees in such a small place and one or two are working while the others are chit chatting and sniffing the air among other things. There could be a layoff for those whose jobs are not really needed and it is done everywhere. There is such a thing like in my day in the federal government where you fill out a form (time sheet) for how long it takes you to do each piece of work, how long it takes you to go to the bathroom, etc. and in that way they can see how many people that they can keep and how many to do away with. Cost savings can be done if someone uses their brains.
Agreed Jules. But don’t forget that the city does a lot of work for the counties. But I’m sure if we looked we could find efficiencies to improve city operations.
If the city does work for the counties then that could be a separate package indicated on the sheet for what they do for the counties (what kind of work and how long it takes to do the assignments, etc.). There are many employees who are hired for a lot of nonsense and I have seen it in the federal government in my day that would make everyone scream their heads off. Yes there is plenty of dead wood than can be eliminated and plenty of cost savings.
Jules….they’ve tried to seperate counties from city work before with no luck. A lot of the work is intertwined. Seperating it and tabulating what work gets done for whom is not easy. It’s probably cheaper to leave the work intertwined and not try to figure out what is being done for whom. tan to try and nickel and dime the city and counties on whom does what for whom.
I remember when I worked for the federal government they wanted us to (basically justify our unit’s existence) keep stats. I calculated one day that I spent an average of 1½ hours per day compiling stats. Out of a 7½ day that seemed a bit much.
I started my work life with National Defense at Shirley’s Bay (Ottawa) Hugger1. Sounds to me like your department ran at peak efficiency compared to what I observed and experienced.
When I was basically reprimanded for making others look inefficient when I completed a three month report in just two weeks I realized that a civil service career was not for me. Being self employed was both much more challenging and rewarding.
Our unit was constantly under the “justify your existence” mentality from upper management. Thus we had to be very efficient in what and how we did anything. We learned quickly how to “justify our existence” and much more. We took on projects that were outside our realm of expertise and made them much more efficient.